Memoirs of a Desert Ranger
by Machiavellian Skulduggery
Summary: After the Courier Has become the only power in the Mojave the NCRs power is crumbling away from home. An NCR Veteran Ranger elite and ex-Desert Ranger abandons the NCR and Seizes the mantle once again to set out and right the wrongs done to him in his past at the hands of The NCR and Victor Presper. Story will alternate from past to present every few chapters.
1. The Haven in the Wasteland

_**Memoirs of a Desert Ranger**_

_**Prologue July 24th 2279 19:30 The 'Haven' in the Wasteland**_

_**The Ranger stood outside the saloon one hand on his hip absent mindedly running his fingers along the enscription on the barrel of his sequoia reading each letter with his fingers 'Against all tyrants' it read, once the words had given him a sense of purpose. A drive to protect the weak. However they now meant something very different. He studied the Saloon with an amused grin forming under his helmet; The sign above the door read SPITOON in a flickering neon light and for the state it was in it was probably the most apt name that could be given, the building was a patchwork of wood and corrugated iron turned black from constant exposure to the Wasteland with an odd oily liquid running down the sides in beads, smoke curled out from the gaps of the makeup of the building disapearing into the blackness above senting the atmosphere for miles around. It also seemed to be slanted and buckling under its' own weight making the sides buldge out slightly. His amusemnet also stemed from the fact that once he had spotted the building in the distance and made the choice to sleep hear rather than spend another night out in the wastes on hard rations and cold water and now, seeing it up close, almost made him want to turn around to that much less filth infested rock over there to sleep on, his reasoning had been that he might be able to get some hot food -even some fried cazador would taste sublime to him right now- and if he was lucky he also might find a half comely woman to warm his bed for the night.**_

_**The other reason he liked to hide (even from himself) was that he hadn't had a drop of whiskey in almost a week, saloons mean whiskey and whiskey meant that the growing pain behind his eyes would subside and the shakes that had started to take his hands would be kept at bay at least for awhile.**_

_**He took one last breath, through the filter in his helemt, of clean air and strode forward towards the fine establishment that would be his home for the night. He was a stickler for etiquette especially as so little remained in the Wastleland, however he would have forsaken it just this once and kept his helemet on if it hadn't made people mistrust him more than they already would.**_

_**What would they see? A man dressed, to what looked like to them, as an NCR Ranger. Hiding his face behind that emotionless helemet, behind those intimidating red eyes. No, it would be better to suffer the toxic air than have them immediatly hostile. Of course people were always suspicious of him even if they could see his face, he was after all armed to the teeth, wearing a big black trench coat covered in days worth of dust and dirt also he had a green blood stain up his right arm from where a Giant Ant had tried to eat him as he slept and it turns out that shooting them while they are on top of you results in a large amount of splash back.**_

_**As he entered the conversation slowly ebbed out of the room into the wastes behind him until all that remaned was a deathly silence. He quickly scanned the room; eyes used to spotting hidden bandits from a quarter of a mile away made quick work of the room pulling in all the information that was in view and some that wasn't. For instance he saw some people premptively leave through the back, he saw some people instinctively place their hands to their sides to reach for their weapon, he saw somepeople with red ringed eyes and hair falling out not even noticing that something had changed indictating they were in the depths of psycho addiction and he saw people avoid his gaze entierly and suddenly become very interested in the bottom of their glass. They would be the ones would wouldn't give him any trouble by themselves but if one person harrassed him then they would find their voices.**_

_**"Well I'll be Fuckin' damed" rang a voice from the back of the saloon "I can hear the radio" A very overweight man walked in almost draging his feet along the floor as he did so under his great weight, a feat almost impressive in the wasteland.**_

_**"What!? Get back to your drinks you craven halfwits". He spat at them. After such a scolding a low hub of noise returned to the bar however it was much quieter than the raucous behaviour that had been before he entered the bar, some eyes still nervously flickered from him to the door calculating whether something would happen if they tried to leave.**_

_**"An' what can I get for you sir" said the Barkeep in a much more civil tone than he adressed the rest of the Bar with.**_

_**"A whiskey and a bighorner steak if you have it" His voice was one of his greatest weapons, sometimes even more dangerous than a bullet and had almost certainly saved his life on more than a few occasions. It was one that exuded confidence and strength yet not to harsh as to be arrogant or too timid to be considered weak, it had a silky texture to it that captivated listeners and on the more dim people he met could be used to almost bend them to his will in a way that often scared even him. He saw the effect it had on the Barkeeper immediately as his features softened and he became more relaxed as did some of the clientele surrounding him.**_

_**"Bighorners have been dying off reacently, gettin' pretty pricy mister, 15 caps a piece of meat" his eyes gave away that he wasn't totally mispleased with the fact.**_

_**"After the friendly greeting I've recieved hear?" questioned the Ranger spreading his arms around him palms flat in a gesture of humility. "Maybe we could cut that to...9 caps? I'm not unreasonable".**_

_**The Barkeeper broke his gaze and grumbled something that sounded like "fair enough" and shuffled away and into the back placing a bottle of whiskey on the bar infront of him as he did so. The Ranger sat at the bar resting his helmet on his knees. He pried the cork from the bottle trying to keep the savage hunger that he felt for the drink from his face and fingers as he did so. When he removed the cork as controlled as he could, he took a long swig from the bottle emptying half of it in one go. As he set it down upon the bar he felt a gentle pressure on his shoulder of a hand and heard a very delicate clearing of a throat behind him, he turned and the corners of his lips involuntarily curled at the edge into a smile.**_

_**"I don't believe that I've had the pleasure" The Woman drawled as she held her hand out toward him, she was wearing a dress with a black bodice and red lace for the lining tying up into a flower on her thigh, it exposed one leg going all the way to just below her waist showing the pale skin of her leg and scarcely hiding what was beneath. Her hair fell loosely around her shoulders in brown curls, her chin was sharp above a long neck with sea green eyes full of warmth resting upon prominent cheeckbones.**_

_**The Ranger kept his smile eyes never leaving hers as he raised her hand and brushed his lips against her knuckles and said "No you haven't...Yet anyways" he replied not breaking eye contact for the entire engagement, he may be getting his wish after all he thought. He would soon learn that this was to his folly as while his eyes were fixated on hers he hadn't noticed or heard the two people approach him from behind. Her eyes widened and she pulled away ever so slightly a silent word forming on her lips, for a split second he wondered as to how he had acheived to repel her in what must have been record time, instinct however kicked in as he recognised it as a look of fright from something behind him. He dived forward taking her down with him in his haste turning as he did so feeling a swoosh of air past his nape missing him by mere milimetres as he rolled to his feet. The two people behind him, one a man and one woman, glared at him with such hatred burning in their eyes that he already knew it was becuase they thought he was from the NCR, not for the first he marveled at the hate the NCR could instill in people in a world where Caesars Leigon existed. He was also exasperated since there were considerable differences between a Desert Ranger and an NCR Veteran Ranger and it had only been 8 years since the NCR absorbed the Desert Rangers.**_

_**"NCR Dog shit" the man spat "Do you think you can just saunter in hear as if you did nothing to us" he hissed through bared teeth, spittle flying out with the words.**_

_**Just as he suspected the ones who had stared into the bottom of their glasses earlier now looked up and met his gaze.**_

_**"I have done nothing to you" he said keeping his voice steady and on an even tone "We have never met before and I am not NCR"**_

_**"Du'yuh think us t'be that dumb Ranger, just dumb tribals is that it?" Sreeched the woman, this time "You wear the uniform, you carry the gun and yet you still walk in hear"stamping her foot in a petulant fashion as she shrieked, almost in harpy like hysterics.**_

_**"Do you see a two headed bear on my shoulder "he growled in a low tone losing his usually calm demeanor in confrontations such as these "I have never even been hear before" taking an unitentional step forward in his rage. "Get your bloody eyes sorted out fuckwitts".**_

_**That had pushed it too far and the woman dashed forwards swinging the knife downwards in a wild overhead swipe screaming obsceneties as she did so, the sudden danger caused adrenaline to rush through his system and activate his Implant GRX, part of the NCRs 'Soldier Enhancement Program' naturally kept away from the eyes of the NCR public the Program had been guilted upon him when he once was loyal to the NCR. The Implant mass produced adrenaline and would release it in large concentrated quantities at once to make it appear to the user as if time had slowed and their reactions having sped up to incredible speeds, he saw the knife slowly decend towards his face, if he didn't do something he would have his head in two halves quite soon, he brought out his seqouia from it's holster at his hip, brought it level with the knife and squeezed the trigger. The bullet came into contact with the knife at the blade causing it to go spinning across the room with the crash of the shot reverberating around the small Bar. She turned and looked at the knife travelling across the room her mouth still agape from her screaming, he now drew the gun level with that, thumbed back the hammer and waited. As the implant wore-off and time seemed to fasten and she ran onto the gun barrel with it pressing against the back of her throat, too stunned and surprised to do anything she just stood there in shocked silence, with eyes wide, as was everyone else while the Ranger Sighed and drew a deep breath to adress the entire room.**_

_**"Now, since we have all calmed down I am going to lay this down very simply". He said quite crisply projecting his voice to all corners of the bar"Now I am going to take my Whiskey, with an addittional one Barkeep if you please" he said as he stroad over to the bar the gun still pointing down her throat as he walked to the bar pressing further down her throat so she would walk backwards, seeming just to notice she let out a pained whimper as she was forced backwards towards the bar. "And leave without any further fuss or interuption to your night" He picked up the bottle in his right hand placing the new unopened one in his jacket pocket simultaneously drawing out a handfull of caps and throwing them at the bar "Keep the change" he said out of the corner of his mouth. "There is a difference between the Desert Rangers of Nevada and the NCR Rangers of California" He said taking a swig from his whiskey "With the dissolution of the NCR in the Mojave after The Courier pushed them out, pushed the Legion out and turned Mr House into a vegetable you are going to be seeing the return of the Desert Rangers very quickly and you should better learn the difference very quickly as others aren't as well manered as I am". With that he removed the gun from the Womans mouth pressed it against her forehead and slowly walked backwards out the Saloon doors giving the woman he had been talking to a hand up and apologised for the inconvenience he had caused her and whispered something no one else could hear in her ear.**_

_**"If anyone follows me I'll know" As he said this he was disapearing from their view into the night but he flashed his Night Vision quickly on and off making his eyes seemigly flash very brightly Sanguine red and from the tales the customers would tell of that night the eyes hung in the darkness all the way until the break of morning.**_


	2. 1st Rangers

**Just to clear up a few faux pas from the last chapter, the date is actually 2183 while it said 2279. The chapters will differ every 2-3 from after this one of being in the present (2183) and being in 2279-2181. The Latter chapters will be showing the Rangers past and discovering why he is in his current situation, while the present chapters will further his story.**

_**Memoirs of a Desert Ranger**_

_Chapter 1 July 25th 2183 00:30 The 1st Rangers_

_The Ranger set down his Helmet next to the rock that was to be his Bed for the night, after the confrontation at the SPITOON he had walked for two kilometres, all the while stewing about how 'fucking ignorant' people could be and how he was sure he could have charmed that dress into pirouetting off of the body of the woman he had spoken too. " Didn't even get her bloody name" he muttered under his breath still feeling sorry for himself, if he cared enough he would have felt bad for anyone traveling with him at the time. He was acting like a spoiled brat having lost a plaything, in a mood where he was ready to 'kick a cat'. An Old World expression that he was especially fond of after having read it in a book; he had no idea what a cat actually looked like with the last one having supposedly been exterminated for its' meat in 2208, however he imagined it was an animal were a large degree of pleasurable was gained from kicking long distances; like mole-rat cubs. He lay down releasing a sigh, full of contempt for humanity. He rest his head against the rock and stared up at the stars, yet again reading the enscription on his seqouia with his fingers. An act that brought a morbid sense of comfort considering what the words now meant to him, except this time he read 'For honourable service' How ironic he scoffed inside head. However they did bring back the memories of the 1st Rangers a group of six of them made up of 4 Veteran Rangers and two members of 1st recon that existed as a splinter cell of the two groups and had a reputation of being even more hardy and dangerous than the NCR Rangers and 1st Recon._

_He recalled how he was the quickest Ranger ever to go from having been promoted to being a Veteran Ranger to then becoming a member of the 1st Ranger elite corp, sparking many arguments between members of the Rangers and 1st Recon high command. The act that had got him promoted in the first place had been a secret op into Legion territory that had started as a reconaissance misson that had gone off almost entierly without a hitch._

_June 9th 2279 00:00_

_They landed in their specially assigned Vertibird (one of 5 owned in all of the NCR) their objectives were to: infiltrate the legion controlled town under darkness, Steal some documents of undiscolsed information all without alerting anyone that they had been there and then return to the vertibird to evac out of there. As they returned to the Vertibird however they discovered that the long grass they had landed in was host to legion troops wearing camoflauge that swarmed them as they returned. The legion had never made use of such tactics such as these before, usually prefering to rush straight in and have it done quickly and in a messy fashion, this caught them off guard resulting in many Rangers to fall before any retaliation could be given. All other Rangers on the mission (No Veterans) were assulted to the point of loss of conciousness or death, the Ranger had recovered as many injured Rangers into the Vertibird as he could before bashing the wall between the cockpit and him signalling to the pilot that everyone who was going to get in had gotten in. As the vertibird slowly began to takemoff, what seemed to be, hundreds of legionarries running into the clearing. He brought down scores of them as they charged towards him, no doubt or fear in their eyes only a deadly conviction to stop his blood pumping, the only reason he had succeeded was by using his high powered anti-material rifle: every bullet shot was able to go through at least 6 legionaiires, each time sending them flying backwards roughly 8 feet, dismembering limbs and exposing entrails on the ones who hadn't been hit in by an immediately lethal shot. Once having taken off he realised that he needed medical attention just as much as the rest of the Rangers._

_Becuase of the Adrenaline rushes from the Implant GRX he couldn't feel the full brunt of his wounds but upon examining his torso he found two lacerations caused by bullets, one had shattered his collar bone upon impact but wasn't lethal (only extremely painful), the other had grazed his hip leaving a painful graze which slowly ebbed blood. When he went to check his face he felt something wet on his face he pulled his hand away expecting to see blood from a wound in his cheek, the ironic reality however was that his right hand was shot to ribbons. Most fingers were shot off or hanging by shreds of skin with splintered bone sticking out the stumps, his palm had a huge chunk of flesh missing, tearing its' path across his hand to just beneath his middle finger, if it hadn't been so disturbing and having instilled such a feeling of horror in him he may have laughed as it looked similar to a comical cartoon bite from Grognak the Barbarian. With an Icy pang of dread shooting up his spine he knew he would bleed out unless he amputated his hand, even if he didn't he would need to do it before he recieved medical attention to save them time in saving his life. While he couldn't feel them he was sure of other wounds sustained to other parts of his body, mainly a machete swipe he thought he had avoided at first but now thought it had caught him in his tricep surae from the wet feeling pooling into his boots. He withdrew his belt from his waist and tightened it around his upperfore arm just below the elbow forming a tournique and waited for the blood to stop weaping out of his hand before proceeding. Whispering a prayer to the new cannanite 'God' under his breath as he drew his combat knife from his belt, he didn't believe in their 'God' more than any other tribal deity but they were the most self assured that he existed so he chose him. With his head turned into the vertibird hull he swung the Razor sharpe knife down, taking the fact that he didn't feel anything as a sign that it met its' mark, with it in as far as it would go in one swipe (too the bone) he began to saw, even all the adrenaline in the word couldn't mask the pain from him as he cut through the marrow, it caused spasms of pain curling up his arm into the base of his head, resulting his back to arch in agony, all the while still sawing. After what seemed like an age his Forearm fell away, he expected to hear a gush of blood but the tournique held true and that was the last thing he recalled before succumbing to the black release that was unconciousness._

_He was told a week later that the pilot, having had no idea that after taken off what state the Ranger was in, naively threw open the doors of the vertibird, upon seeing the mess that was the aftermath of the ametur surgery he vomited onto the runway between his feet as the medical team he had radioed in pushed him out the way and grabbed each of them, pulled them onto stretchers and sprinted into the makeshist surgery tent. Miraculously over half of them survived, the weeks after had passed in a morphine induced blur of Doctors, Rangers and surgery. He would later come to remember signing some document that at the time he was told would save his life (his other hand). It turned out however, to be and experimental prosthesis program (another 'Soldier Enhancment program') that allowed them to try experimental technology on him which involved them grafting a robotic human shaped arm to his stub covered in believeable human skin. At the time he had been gushing with gratitude and while now he still appreciated having to arms, they had taken advantage of his state just so that they could play god with him, on technology that they didnt know would work. As if he was an expendable toy for them to have their fun with. His body could have regected the technology and in his state probably would have resulted in his death, they strapped it to him and just crossed their fingers. When he fully gained consiousness he awoke to find Chief Hanlon at the foot of his ready bed to pin a medal on his hospital gown, show him his NCR Veteran Ranger Uniform. After 19.5 combined of Years of service (11 in the Desert Rangers and 8.5 in the NCR Rangers) and having performed an act of extreme bravery and valor he was one of the few judged to be worthy of accelerated promotion, he was also handed his Sequoia for the first time in a shined brown leather holster, he remembered marvelling at the lightweight fee it had along with something that felt like power ebbing in to him from the gun. Hanlon gave a curt nod and left before giving having to do more than his duty required of him. The two Rangers had never seen eye to eye, with Hanlon feeling that The Ranger was facetious in his handling of resonsibility, while the Ranger viewed Hanlon to be a narrow minded man who couldn't see beyond his own nose, who was too willing to set upon one path without any flexibility or looking for a more efficient one._

_June 22nd 2279 12:30_

_Five days later someone walked through the flap of his medical tent, the face had looked somewhat familiar and yet oddly new as the face of people you once new sometimes looked. The Person in particular was called Raymond Riordan. Ray for short. He was often quoted as saying he didn't enjoy his name as some people did, mainly because once people knew it the R&R jokes were never ending. Never the less he was a very proud man walking in with an air of confidence providing an atmosphere to the room just from his stature and body language that The Ranger could only create through words. He had somewhat closely cropped hair at the sides with a chunk of length on the top, his hair was grey at the temples from years of Wasteland Isolation Syndrome (A psychological disease many people suffered for short periods of time after having been by ones' self in the wasteland for long periods of time). However it was hidden behind his salt and pepper colour hair. He stroud over giving a large smile as he did so, he extended his hand to go for a hand shake but though better of it as the arm prosthesis haden't fully settled yet and turned it into a light pat on the shoulder. His face straightened._

_"You still look 18 bloody years old" he said without even a hint of humor._

_The two men then burst into laughter sharing in a private joke that was First said 15 years ago after having been on a patrol inculding Ray, someone (whos' name escaped him) commented on how his face had not changed after 5 years of service. It had been a joke that had followed him for the rest of his life in the Desert Rangers and had yet agian caught up to him. Ray had been one of his best friends in the Desert Rangers as well as being his Captain from day one._

_"After 8 'n' a half year that is the first thing you say?" The Ranger commented through his fit of laughter ignoring the pain flowing from his shoulder._

_For the next two hours the Ranger caught up with one of his oldest friends, sharing memories, discussing locations of other friends and what they had been doing in the near decade in which they hadn't seen one another._

_"Well you always were a Jammy bastard, they sent Ranger scouts to go and recover any Rangers you hadn't managed to recover". He stood up went to the foot of the bed and lent forward "There were almost 100 dead legionaiires there" he slapped his palm on the bedframe, he looked The Ranger in the eyes then, his eyes full of opportunity and excitement. "That was damn fine shooting" he took a pause before continuing and bit his lip "Look, I didn't just come to catch up, I came to make you an offer. The 1st Rangers are a member down in our NCR Veterans, we need a fourth. I've been meeting tens of Veteran Rangers over the past few weeks and non of them could even get close to doing that, not a single one, except you, those are the kind of people we want in the 1st Rangers. He let that hang in the air waiting for a reply that wasn't given._

_"Well?" he probed a frown of dissapointment spreading across his face._

_"Well what? You haven't actually asked me anything." He replied smuggly a self satisfied smirk on his face_

_An irked look of relief spread across Rays' face "I forgot what a pedant you were" he stepped away from the bed, he then progressed to making a show of getting onto one knee and saying "On behalf of the 1st Rangers I do cordilly and also very possibly formally invite you to join the ranks of the 1st Rangers"._

_Before The Ranger could give any reply Ray Strode to the flap of the tent, one hand on the edge of it and said "You will be needing this" he threw a pin onto his duvet that would clip onto his Veteran Ranger Trench coat inside pocket. "Don't even pretend to say no". Ray said in a hearty manner with an undertone of menace lying just beneath the surface, with that he spun on his heel and walked out hailing someone but was already out of earshot._

_Recalling that memory was Bittersweet, predominatly sweet, though very few memories including Ray could be truly unpleasent to call to mind. With that he took a night cap swig from one of his whiskeys and tried to settle down into a rock as best he could manage._


	3. Return to The Mojave

**27th July 2183 13:05**

As The Ranger had walked through The Long 15 he had observed many grey eyes boring into him from all sides, each and every one dull and giving the semblence of being devoid of life. After the Courier had pushed out the NCR from the Mojave the securitrons had chased all remnants of the NCR miltary out, with the point of a rocket and the Whisper of General Oliver having been thrown of the dam, biting at their heels as they went. The Senate had been left reeling, their top military comander dead, leader of their Rangers having blown his brains out with his own Sequoia after having been found conspiring against NCR high command, President Kimball, having been the scapegoat of the Courier, had vanished after having people howling for his blood night and day, after all it had been his drive that had kept the NCR in the Mojave for so long, his succesor Colonel Moore had been a poor substitute, declaring war on New Vegas resulting in a week long slaughter of already disheartened NCR Troopers, resulted in the military no longer listening to her, with no power left she followed suite and was found dead 8 days after having declared war. The acculmulation of all this had resulted in chaos in the senate, with no one knowing what to do the whole NCR had stagnated, the troopers pulled out of the Mojave entierely just beyond the reach of the securitrons but without anyone to command them they just stayed there in The Long 15 living in Shanty towns, dying a little bit every day that they remained there. His presence must have been surprising to them. The Ranger Veterans had all but been destroyed after the second battle of Hoover dam, most of them having refused to retreat in their undying loyalty to the NCR. He would have thought them to be morons but he had once thought along the same wavelengths, it astounded him that he would have done as they did but he attributed it to the patriotical brainwashing that occured in the NCR propaganda. As he had walked among them the barest flickerings of curiosity could be seen behind those lifeless eyes, just about rosing them from their zombie like state they shuffled from his path as he walked, he kept one hand close to his sequoia and the other ready to flick out his knife, yet they had done nothing, merely shuffled about in a future deprived daze. 

As he left he felt sorry for them, most of them hadn't wanted to be in the Mojave or knew why they were there beyond Kimballs' lust for expansion, dressed up and told to them that 'The NCR was restoring civilization to the wasteland'. There were those, on the other hand, who he didn't feel quite as sorry for, the people in question had been following him ever since he had entered The Long 15, among the crowd they had shifted from hut to hut and tried to replicate the empty behaviour of the other troopers. However now as was coming away from the border of The Long 15 they were increasing in speed. They increased even more as they came within sight of the Mojave outpost. Since the securitrons range couldn't reach this far south the few remaining Rangers and Troopers who still did their 'duty' without being told to do it kept a skelton crew remaining at the outpost to try and show the Courier that the NCR was not in the shape that it was.

Despite the fact that they might tail off as he got closer to the outpost he decided to detour off of the road, he came to a rock, sat on it, turned around, removed his helemt and tried to appear as non-chalant to their presence as he could. As they approached he observed what they were armed with, most had either cattle prods, knives or batons and were dressed in torn, dust covered uniforms which in reality provided very little protection against any bullet of a higher caliber than 10mm. They came to 5 metres of him and stood, after 10 seconds of, what the Ranger found, to be rarther amusing silence he broke it.

"What a wonderful day it is here in the Mojave" he said, adding as much friendliness as he could. To his momentary surprise the Leader responded in kind.

"Isn't it" He said approaching The Ranger and sitting on a rock opposite, Leader had dark black hair in a brush forward, which attributed to the fact that he looked fairly ridiculous as in all that he did, his walk, his talk, the way he settled his hands at his side, overall he didn't help to diffuse the Rangers amusement.

They sat in silence again, The leader kept his smile as did the courier, the rest of the group did not however.

"Would you like a drink?" The Ranger inquired, removing the Whiskey bottle from his Jacket pocket as he did so. He would normally be loath to do so however there was someone at the Outpost who would be able to re-stock him.

"Why thank you?" The leader said taking the bottle and taking a long swig, emptying it and throwing over his shoulder.

Up until then the surreal civility had brought mirth to The Ranger. However this had pushed it a bit too far. The Ranger stood standing over The Leader, who kept his smile all the while, The Ranger However did not.

"And what can I do for you fine Gentlemen" the tone had changed in his voice to having an edge to it and was one of icy distane coming out through gritted teeth. The Leader rose to meet him face to face.

"Well we aren't fond of Veteran Rangers here, it was their Cheif Hanlon whos' fault it was that we lost the Second Battle of Hoover Dam.

The Ranger wasn't even going to ask where that theory had come from, considering Hanlon had blown his brains out several weeks prior to the Battle. Among the Grunts of any Military, who didn't know jack shit of what happened at the top, lies spread considering what happened in disasters often having people or events that didn't occur included, as was what happened here.

"So you see we have a problem" The Leader said his tone still keeping the friendly tone."You see, you look like a Veteran Ranger, you walk like a Ranger, you carry your-self like a Ranger an-" The Ranger cut him off mid-sentance.

"And how does a Veteran Ranger Carry themselves" He said, despite himself yet again letting his anger get the better of him, mainly becuase of the fact that they were NCR and accociated him with the Veteran Rangers still.

"Aloof, better than the rest of us, now you will pay 2000 Caps right now or we, will take great pleasure in beating the crap out of you until you are dribbling onto your chest and shitting through a tube,". He spread his arms out as if offering one path or the other.

The Ranger was about to make some incredibly witty retort that would make all of them return to The Long 15 with their tails between their legs. However something had caught his accute ears, a small intake of breath, this combined with the fact that The Leader had just stepped to the right (Away from infront of The Ranger) and was walking backwards told him that he was about to be shot. He rolled to the side as the shot came just a second too late, it infact hit one of the leaders entourage striking him in the upper chest killing him instantly. He charged towards the young woman who was his would be shooter, she leveled the gun at his face a fraction too late and he was able to push her wrist up the shot missing his head minimally but was close enough to dishevel his hair. Her left hand was disabled with his holding the gun to the side, so she swung wildly with her right, he easily ducked and stammped on the side of her knee. He felt a crunch and she fell letting out a cry. He then brought his other leg up and rammed his knee into her chin, he saw her eyes roll back as her brain connected with the side of her skull, lights out. She crumpled and her grasp on the Weapon slackened and he wrenched it free of her fingers. While this had happened two of the entourage had had time to dash up towards him, one going low and the other high with their swipes, he dived forwards between the Cattle prod and batton, the final member of the entourage came up to meet him as his accociates stumbled into each other behind. Before he could react The Ranger shot him in his left ankle, as he came up, forcing him to one knee, as he cluched his ankle The Ranger stood, slapped him with the back of his hand causing him to fall onto the flat of his face, then shot him through his spinal cord where his head met his neck. The Final two had composed themselves and turned to charge headlong yet again. Before either could do so he shot them each, once in their weapon holding hands and once in their right foots. They collapsed and dragged themselves along the floor away from The Ranger. He then brought the gun up to The Leader, who had stayed back throughout this, leveled it and squeezed the trigger. *click*. He cursed having shot all six bullets in the gun he tossed it to one side. Before he had time to draw his Sequoia or Combat knife The Leader dashed in and swung diagonally downwards, The Ranger leaned backwards with the Knife coming a bit close for comfort. Having overswung The Leaders head was now down, he then brought his knee into contact with the bridge of The Leaders nose, sending him reeling back with blood splurting out of his nose, as he reeled The Ranger advanced not letting up, firing shots up into his ribs and upper body winding him causing him to double up. The Ranger wound up a punch and launched an uppercut that caught his chin, lifting him off the ground and sending him 4 feet backwards, he landed with an audible thump. The Ranger approached and placed his heel on his chest and ground his heel from side to side causing a shout of agony to come out of the mans lips he then brought his knee down and pressed it into The Leaders neck hard, ramping up the pressure in The Leaders head, causing the man to feebly try and claw his knee away. He increased the pressure turning the mans face a deep shade of purple and resulting in his eyes buldging from his face, he brought his knee off slightly after a few seconds relief spread through The Leaders face as he was able to bring in a few shuddering breaths. It was to be short lived however; as he had decreased the pressure to give his knee some manouverability, he quicky snapped it to the side, violently wrenching his head side ways in a jerking motion, breaking the mans neck. It was a common misconseption that snapping someones' neck resulted in instantaneous death, it reality he would die slowly, choking on his own blood and would either die from his heart giving out from the bodily shock, from the lack of oxyegn or from drowing in his own blood. He stood observing the scene before him, the two injured troopers still crawled away from him, he drew his knife from its' sheath at his waist and gave them a red smile spreading from ear to ear, colouring the already red coloured earth around them a deep shade of crimson.

He approached the unconscious trooper ready to do the same, something brought him to pause however, he didn't quite know what it was. He grabbed her by her hair and pulled her head back. The hair it-self was coloured midnight black with a hot pink streak colouring down the side in a braid, he frowned, the colour was against the cosmetic regulations that the NCR enforced upon their troopers, her features were also far too soft at the edges to have been those of someone above 18 (The minimum age for joining the NCR military), he supposed she may have actually been nearing her 16th birthday. He didn't feel any remorse over having probably broken her leg, but from her appearence he supposed that she was actually a member of one of the marauding gangs of bandits that roamed these areas; most likely a member of the Jackals or Vipers. He pulled her lips apart and ran his thumb along her teeth, if blood was drawn then she would have been a Jackal; wo sharpened their teeth to razor sharp points, while if she was a Viper then a thin green layer of venom would be mixed with her spittle; the Vipers followed a cult religion which worshiped a serpent deity called The God of the Pit, once a month they would overdose on alcohol and snake venom as a bizzare method of praising their God, they did it to the point where the venom remained in their saliva. It came away Viridescent-Emerald colour, a Viper then, his heart sank slightly. He expected her to be a bandit, but anything would have been better than a Viper or Jackal, their lives ended wither with a burst head or having died in fits of delerium. He suposed they would have stolen the uniforms to take advantage of the remnants of the NCR military; it would explain the bizzare explanation behind the defeat at Hoover dam, why they weren't all in the dazed, vulnerable state the rest of the NCR military was and why they weren't all skin and bones like the rest of the troopers as most had run out of food in The Long 15.

He drew his knife down her cheek to serve as a momento from the Desert Rangers, to remind her and her friends that they would be coming back, that he could have killed her but instead spared her to provide a warning.

He may have had qualms about leaving her to die now that she was of use and that she may decide to take a new path having come so close to death at such a young age. However he could spot, from the corner of his eye, other troopers in the sea of the brain dead, focusing very intently upon him, he was sure they were 'colleages' of hers and that they would collect her once he had left. He spun on his heel and proceeded towards the NCR outpost, getting ever closer to the Mojave.

**27th July 2183 13:20**

The guard who stood to attention at the gates that separated the Mojave from California eyed the Ranger with a certain amount of suspicion, he was a Ranger that was for sure, he carried himself with a walk of a man who had power, who had seen many thing which he wished he hadn't. The Helmets that the Rangers wore always set his teeth on edge, the guard never trusted a man who hid his face it meant they had something to hide, it didn't help that the eyes red eyes looked straight through you exposing everything, ironically revealling all that which you had to hide. He subconsiously puffed out his chest as The unafiliated Ranger drew closer. He came to a stop about half a meter away from The guard, in his aprehension of The Ranger he had forgotten to hail him to stop before he came close, silently cursing his stupidity. Before he could ask as to what The Ranger was doing here The Ranger had cocked his head to the side obviously thinking the same as The Guard was but beat him to it.

"If you were wondering why I was here, I'm here to meet someone" The Ranger said, The guard noted that his voice sounded unlike normal Ranger helmets this one had an in-built voice camouflage system, it rendered the voice unrecognisable masking the users, sex, species (Human or ghoul) and age unidentifiable. It worked by modulating the users natural voice, then changing the pitch, timbre and accent and scambling it: what was unusual about this however was that standard AV voice camouflage systems often only did this once, The Rangers scrambled his voice hundreds of times to the point where it was a dry, flat monotone that sounded not un-smilar to that of a Mr Handy Robot. The Guard was perplexed by The Ranger, he was clearly a Ranger; yet he didn't seem to have any obvious loyalties to the NCR, also behind that voice camouflage The Guard could, somehow, almost make out a bemused, sardonic grin, where the Ranger seemed to sense and enjoy The Guards discomfort. Not wanting to give The Ranger pleasure from his insecurity he straightened, drew him-self up and calmed his thoughts, he, after all, was the one in the position of power hear.

"Are you a Member of the New California Republic" He asked, drolling out the pre prepared phrase that he was supposed to give in these situations.

"Well...Not really...Anymore at least but I have business hear and I can be a real pain in the arse when I don't get what I want".

"If you are not a New California Republic citizen then you are forbidden to proceed unless you are a with a Caravan". The Guard responded, feeling smug having gained control over The Ranger.

"So, you have refused entry into the entire Mojave, to everyone not a member of The NCR" The Rangers body Language gave away that he found what he heard to be absurd.

"Look sir just..."The smugness had started to come through in his voice as he had started to tell The Ranger to go and appeal to someone else. He had stopped however when he felt something prickling against the underside of his chin. He glanced down and saw a knife point tickling the fleshy, soft skin under his chin, a small beed of blood having been drawn trickled down the knife, his fear paralysed him rendering him unable to do anything as the Ranger lent forward.

"As I said before I can be a literal pain if I don't get what I want, come on mate, is it worth dying over this? You're just doing your job after all.

The Guard accidentally swallowed, the knife dug in a little bit deeper as a result causing him to wince. The Ranger did make sense, Why should he die? Just to satisfy the orders of a spiteful nation. Besides if The Ranger went beyond the outpost dressed like that then the likelyhood was that he would be blown to itty bitty pieces which The Guard would take great joy in watching.

The Guard waved his hand above his head behind him to the man stationed at the gate controls to open the gate, in the future, he decided he would stand more to the left so that if anyone tried this again they would be in the line of sight of the other guards. The gate rattled as it moved to the side.

The Ranger removed the knife from his chin and patted him on the shoulder in praise, when he thought that The Ranger was out of earshot he let out a long shuddering breath that he had been holding for the whole encounter, as he realised he very nearly could have died just then he let out a sob of happiness to be alive.

As the Ranger walked through the outpost he observed the familiar surroundings taking in the changes that had occured in the couple of years since he had last been hear, it was strangely unchanged in comparison to what state that the Long 15 was in. There were less troopers but they all looked more harderned and ready to throw themselves at their enemies relenting in verocity, if the entire NCR military was like these people, this determind, then the NCR could have been on par with the Legion in soldier quality, where as previously they only won from superior numbers, the skill of 1st recon snipers and the sacrafice given by NCR Rangers in boulder city.

He passed the Bar to the right and considered to stop to restock on supplies (and Whiskey) however he was okay for supplies right now and the person who he hoped to meet would have more than a comfortable abundance of Whiskey.

On the roof of the bar sat a Ranger who he knew quite well, her name was Ghost. Named so from her albino white hair, pink eyes and icy voice that gave her a specteral appearence. Despite her frosty exterior they had been great friends, she had been his intellectual sparring partner, he would often bounce ideas off of her while they were on patrol and she would answer giving him an incredibly cynical viewpoint in return. He had been one of the few people she enjoyed the company of, resulting in many people being quoted as describing her as "A kind of a bitch" and in reality she was but in his view it added to her charm and made her more interesting than most other Rangers he had worked with since the NCR had absorbed the Desert Rangers. Often, more as a social experiment to see whether it could be done, he would drink more whiskey than would be considered healthy, then proceed to try and get in her pants. It was one of the few things she said she found hilarious, he could imagine why as him stumbling around drunk declaring her as his one true love would be something of a pathetic sight.

As he passed her she gave him an intimidating stare that, she often gave to people that she didn't know much about, even on somewhat hardy people it would turn their blood to ice and cause them to soil themselves, to him however it brought a nostalgic smile to his face (of course hidden behind his helmet). When they had first met in the Desert Rangers, he had tipped his hat to her and she responded by punching him in the jaw and explaining why how he had tipped his hat had been wrong, he looked up to her now and tipped an imaginary hat in what she considered to be the 'incorrect' fashion.

A look of dawning spread through her face, she turned around riffling through a bag behind her, drew something out brought it behind her head and threw it at him at high speed.

As it spun through the air towards him its' shape was hidden by the sun, when it came down he caught it in his palm and brought it infront of him to see what it was.

It was a Radscorpion Gland...

He dropped it in disgust and stamped on it uner his heel causing poison to leak out over the road. He knew why she had thrown it and he cursed her under his breath. The reason why he she had thrown it was because he had a phobia of Radscorpions.

He had faced down charging deathclaws and awoken to a giant ant attempting to eat his boot. However Radscorpions just caused him to seize up for a couple of seconds and just do nothing, just thinking of them caused shivers to flow down his spine, he'd seen pictures of scorpions from before the war and they were tiny, fpr some reason the radiation caused mass growth and increased muscular strength, eventually he would come too and kill the Radscorpion when he faced one but it was an embarassing feature for a Ranger to have. As he scraped it off of his boot he looked up and saw Ghost giving him a knowing smile he had just confirmed who he was to her. For anyone who didn't know her they would think she was mildly ammused but for someone who knew her would know that, Ghost smiling was the equivalent of her rolling around on the floor in fits of child like giggles.

She really was a bitch he thought to himself as he stamped up the road towards the monolith that was the NCR Ranger and Desert Ranger statue, his cheeks burning under his helmet.

He was about to leave forgetting his initial reason for being there when he heard a call from behind him and a wave.

A woman running towards him waving her hand above her head, she wore a straw hat to keep the sun off of her pale skin, despite this she had light red sun burn on her cheek bones and had freckles covering her nose and skin around her eyes, she wore a brown leather jacket over a pink and white plaid shirt with a Rose pendant around her neck.

"You weren't going to invite me all the way you hear then shun my company were you" She said smiling, slightly out of breath.

"Well if it isn't Miss Whiskey Rose herself" The Ranger said removing his helmet and drawing her close for a hug, she looked at him condecendingly.

"It's been two years not, twenty" She said and gave him a lingering kiss.

A smile spread across his face, Finally he would get his wish from the SPITTOON he thought.


	4. The Morning Afterwards

**The Morning After**

He sat with his head between his legs. His head pounded and his world span, coming in and out of focus. The sun blinded him and beat upon his neck which he could tell was sunburned, everything hurt and ached, paradoxiacally his hands were shaking becuase he had drunk too much where as it was usually due to not having enough. Upon his cracked lips he could taste sick and bile burning the inside of his gum line, he would have been happy to have lain down and just let everything slip away and to never wake up.

Before he could do that however a small stream of water pattered onto his head, dripping round past his ears into the corners of his eyes. He licked at the drips expecting to taste cool clean water. However what he actually tasted was warm and septic, he spluttered and coughed rolling onto his back to see who had pored this foul water onto him. The silhoette of the person was just barely visible behind the glare of the sun, from the outline of her hat he could tell that it was Ghost, she jumped down from the rooftop with a broken gutter pipe in hand, that must have been what she had pored onto him.

"My God" He said, just about slurring his words out from lips that weren't quite working.

"Your are a bitch?" she said, finishing his sentance for him. She grabbed him by his armpits and dragged him from his sitting position against the wall of the Mojave outpost bar and pulled him onto the roof where Ghost kept her Watch position. As he was being dragged he spotted Cass from the corner of his eye in a state similar to his own, her head was slumped with her straw had covering her face from view. Ghost sat him down next to her and observed the two under a critical eye. After a good deal of observing the awe-inspiring result that she came out with was.

"What a pair you make" She said this in her usual monotone further accenuating the dissapointment that The Ranger felt from her observation.

"Oh bite me" came from, what The Ranger could only assume was Cass as it seemed to lurch out from beneath her hat.

While The Ranger fumbled with his belt making sure that he still had his Knife and Sequoia Cass raised her head and Looked Ghost in the eye, a feat that was considerable if she was truly in a same way as he.

"What the hell..." She pulled herself up against the sandbags that she and The Ranger were propped up against.

"...Happened last night" She continued, staggering to her feet. Her legs wobbled even as she leant on the sandbags.

Ghost pulled her chair towards them, the scraping sound it made on the concrete caused them both to jam their hands into their ears letting out low moans of pain, given now they were feeling even the most delicate stillicide would have felt like it was tearing apart their ear drums. She sat in front of them and leant forward, something close to what The Ranger dared to think of as amusement coiled behind her eyes, despite the rest of her face not showing it.

"Well, First you two were just reminising over Whiskey" She said with a raised eyebrow at The Ranger. "I thought YOU had kicked the habit".

The Ranger not willing to put up a fight raised his palms in a defeated gesture and then slupped them back into his lap. Pulling her gaze off of him she continued.

"Next you decided that you could each drink the other under the table". The Ranger mumbled something similar to "I won". Cass made a feeble attempt at slapping him on the head and mumbled something that sounded like "Yeah, fuck you"

Ghost turned her head and said "How lady like".

"Look at yourself Ice queen" Cass threw her way, getting a sliver more strength in her voice.

Ghost ignored the comment and continued. "Never the less after that, your decision making went the way of the cat and you decided to have, what I could only assume from what I could hear from here, was extremely loud..." Ghost got an uncomfortable look on her face and broke eye contact with The Ranger, a slight look of hurt flickering around the edges of her eyes.

"Sex?" Cass guessed, breaking the awkward silence.

"Yes."

"Is that a problem?"

"No."

"You look uncomfortable."

"I am fine."

"Your sure?"

"Yes."

Cass looked from The Ranger who was still fading in and out of conciousness every few seconds and back to Ghost, then came to a conclusion.

"Well I've never seen an Albino blush but I'd imagine it'd be that colour" she howled in laughter, pointing at Ghosts cheeks and pounding her other fist on the sandbags, laughing to herself despite the pain it caused her head.

Ghosts body slowly began to coil, rising slightly from her seat, like a snake that was ready to strike. Before she could do so The Rangers hand shot out and rested on her wrist, causing her to hesitate in her coming bout of violence.

"Please, Ghost, don't" he said just managing to get the words past his lips.

She gave an extraordiarily rare look of compassion to him and did as he bade her, settling back down into her chair.

"Anyway, then after having had the...sex; on Major Knights desk, you ended up seeing who could punch the other harder in the Jaw. Eventually, after you had both knocked each other unconcious I hauled you back out of the way. I was able to wake Cass up with a few kicks" Ghost looked like the action of kicking Cass had brought her much pleasure "But you took longer to wake up." She continued, Jerking a thumb at The Ranger

The Ranger ground his palms into his temples trying to draw a single wiff of memory of those 'Activities' to mind yet found himself wanting for a recollection. He mentally bashed his head against a wall (doing it physically most likely would have knocked him out), on Knights desk? He asked himself, how could he have done something so primal and Dumb?

Coming to the conclusion that they should probably move along after having heard the previous nights events, Cass and The Ranger gathered up their scattered equiptment to get ready to leave the outpost before any more could be revealed that Ghost may have missed, also to try and not have to run into Major Knight as they would have had to have explained why his papers were either now crumpled or sodden. He found his helmet in the possession of Ghost who was running her fingers along the Sanguine eye pieces in a slow circular motion, she hadn't seen him yet and the sight of this made him feel slightly melancholic, about things that could have and should have been. He approached her took the Helmet from her hands and before she could interject gave her a fierce hug. At first her hands stuck out, but after a few seconds she wrapped them around him and embraced him back burying her face into his neck.

"You really do still look 18 years old" she said in her monotone, bringing a smile to his face in the raw way that it was unsuitable to the quite intimate and personal nature of the moment.

They then said their goodbyes and left each other with Ghost promising to cover him until he passed the Line of securitrons standing sentinel at the bottom of the hill.

The Ranger met with Cass at the zenith of the hill while they decided what their travel plans would be, Cass could acompany The Ranger across the Mojave and a small distance into the North yet after that they would have to part, Cass had her own appointments to keep after all. But for the moment they would split up for a small period of time, Cass would would north towards Primm, while The Ranger would head north west towards The Mesquite Mountains crater to gather his equipment from a deaddrop that he had stored there, it was, in truth, the remnants of a bomb crater site that had been blow from the side of the mountain, all that remained was a small lake of iradiated water and a large (feral) Ghoul population.

The small handfull of people who knew he had a deadrop there or even knew that the location even existed, would often question him; in an incredulous tone as to why he had decided that there was an appropriate location for a dead drop. Surely it would be disasterous for repeat visits, the high radiation, attraction to ghouls and other mutated animals.

In truth the Ghouls and other delights that came with the radiation prove to be of trivial importance to The Ranger and could mostly be solved with either a bullet or Rad away, while the radiation kept away the people who would take great pleasure from pilfering through the deaddrop.

However before they could split on their two (temporarily) separate journeys they woud have to bypass the Phalanx of securitrons that awaited them at the nadir of the Hill leading to the Mojave outpost. With his mind devoid of any ideas on how to deal with them, feigning confidence, he strided towards the securitrons eminating as much confidence and preasence that he could muster. Obviously they were Robots who couldn't be charmed past but it was a reaction that came naturally to The Ranger.

As he came to a stand still infront of the securitrons one came forward from the crowd and adressed the two.

"Identification required, please stand still." Before he could reject a small scanning laser was emitted from the centre of the screen of the securitron and analysed him up and down, no doubt scanning what was beneath the exterior of his clothes as well.

"You have the apearence of an NCR Ranger, you should return to the outpost within 20 seconds or we will be forced to eradicate you." The securitron said, as the image of a soldier on his screen flickered in and out.

In what was a rare moment for The Ranger he found himself to be lost for words and wracked his brains for what he could do to proceed past these lifeless machines who could not be reasoned with or charmed.

Before he could react, in an action that sent alarm bells ringing in his head Cass extremely casually swaggered up to the Securitron and placed her thumb upon a small back strip on the base of the securitrons antenna. Usually this would have been an action that would have had a rocket headed in Cass's direction by now but while The Ranger flinched, covering his face with his arm, expecting to be blown off of the ground and most likely off of his knee caps as well...

Nothing happened only a small whirring sound came The securitron and then static. As he removed his arm from his face he could see that the face of the securitron had changed from being a soldier to being a direct video feed from what looked to be a lavish casino penthouse with a view of the New Vegas strip behind the man (who presumably owned this penthouse) through his penthouse wall sized windows.

He had sand coloured hair brushed into a smooth wave on his head in a similar fashion that The Ranger possessed hidden beneath his helmet, he had a square shaped face with a strong jaw line that could chisel granite that gave him a rugged kind of handsomeness to his features. There was tint of playfullness that coloured his piercing icy blue eyes. His eyebrows arched highly giving him a constant look of surprise and intrigue. He was in possesion of a wide mouth that never seemed to uncurl at the edges with very full pink lips. He flashed a brilliant smile to Cass showing a set of pearl white teeth with his right cainine being inlaid with platinum producing an even more blinding sheen to come from his mouth.

Beneath his head he wore a black dinner jacket, on top of a maroon waist coat buttoned up with platinum buttons, he wore a sleek black shirt with royal blue poka dots, his collar was up turned with a bow tie sitting around his neck unfastened which was the same colour of his teeth. It was obvious from the composition of his clothes that beneath them he was lean and athletic; he stood with what was near perfect posture, his left hand casually resting in his pocket while the other, which had long slender fingers, fiddled with a pocket watch, flicking it in and out of his waistcoat pocket in a distracted fashion. From his disheveled look and the state of the penthouse he looked to have been in the aftermath of an extravegant bourgoeis styled party. The Ranger wasn't sure whether he looked completely bizzare or oddly fascinating.

"Cass" He said, his voice almost had the velvet quality that The Rangers possessed but wasn't quite there as his voice appeared to be full of money, where as The Rangers was not. This left his only possible identity down to one person.

"Not causing trouble down at the outpost are we" he questioned, the smile never leaving his lips. Cass smiled back sweetly like a child having been caught doing something that they shouldn't have.

"No, just meeting up with an old friend." She was almost at the point of twisting her foot in the dirt and twisting her pig tails like a young girl with a crush, this resulted in The Ranger developing an incredulous expression on his face beneath his helmet.

"Ah, so this must be the famous Ranger that Cass told me so much about" His gaze shifting from Cass to The Ranger, still the Brilliant smile remaining. "So, a man cannot actually be called The Ranger, Can he?" He said leaving the question hanging in the air.

The Ranger frowned, not knowing the man (despite having pretty much guessed his identity), he didn't want to release his identity. In Response he gave a very flat.

"No, he can't". The Brilliant smile remained non the less.

"Well you shall have to tell it to me when you come to New Vegas" He said having made a statement rather than a request.

Now The Ranger gathered a frown, he hadn't planned on stopping in New Vegas. Previous experience had taught him that you would spend twice the time that you wanted to in New Vegas no matter how much you stuck to schedule. He had started to decline but Cass cut him off before he could get to it.

"We would love to come to New Vegas and stop by" She said "Make sure that Arcade gets the drinks ready."

"Fantastic" He said through th brilliant smile which had now metamorphosised into a devious grin. "I'll be awaiting your arrival". With a final flash of his mesmerising smile and a click of his fingers the wall of securitrons sepparated to allow them access.

He glanced at Cass who grabbed his hand and led him through the Securitrons into the Mojave. He took his helmet off so that she could see he was scowling.

A puzzled look crossed her face.

"What."

"Why did you accept."

She shrugged and said "It'll be fun"

"After last night we don't need anymore fun"

"We need loads more fun"

"Did you two...you know?" he said leaving the question open ended.

She gave a bark of laughter and said.

"Me, Him, No way...lets just say that he is more interested in OTHER people, mainly someone named Arcade." She said a twinkle of an amusing memory in her eye.

"And he was the Co-"

Before he could finish, She rolled her eyes, grabbed his cheek between her forefinger and thumb and jerked it from side to side in an effort to reprimand him for hispersistece.

"Yes that's him, Oh, come on you have to meet him"

"So that was-"

"Yes that was him, now come one, YOU have got to get to your deadrop while I get to relax at Primm and then we will stop in New Vegas." Her tone suggesting that the matter was finished.

With that she lead him further into the Wasteland.

_Sorry not much progress has been made for the last two chapters, I just wanted to have the entry into the Mojave in deeper detail and to set up the relationships between the new characters that have been introduced._


	5. Mesquite Mountains Crater

28th July 2183 16:37

The Ranger was treading trails he once knew, now turned unfamiliar from the ravages of time and man, by nature he was avoiding paths that he once knew to be patrolled by NCR Troopers, despite it being a fruitless en-devour to avoid the paths he was doing so anyway as it gave him false security. He and Cass had split their paths later than he would have liked at the Nevada high way patrol station rather than the Nipton road pit stop, however from afar it looked like the pit stop had been infested with radscorpions, which sent paralyzing shivers crawling down his spine and pooling into his stomach leaving him with a feeling of nausea so it hadn't been awful for him.

He was trudging up the slight incline towards the Mesquite crater with thoughts of his impending journey on his mind. Because of Cass they would be stopping in New Vegas to meet the friend of hers she had inferred to be The Courier, he had come off as a person of an eccentric disposition, who had his wealth and knew it.

The Courier was, of course, a man whose rise to power and wealth had become the stuff of legend, due to it having been spread by word of mouth it had of course been mostly exaggerated beyond any belief. The only part that people didn't claim to truly know the truth of was his origins before having been dragged out of a grave by a securitron like some New Cannanite biblical tale of being resurrected form death, some said something about a utopia that had arisen in what is now the nuclear wintered, hurricane torn and completely inaccessible husk of a city that is called the Divide, others claimed that he had been a vault dweller that had ventured from the east coast to escape the heart break he suffered from the death of his sweet heart. In reality the truth was that only the Courier knew and after having been shot twice in the head who knew what he still remembered.

Setting the thoughts of curiosity aside he drew himself to his task at hand, he had no idea what the current state of the crater would be, of course he could assume that it had attracted a high Ghoul population since his last visit. However he had no idea as to whether they may have been moved out and a non feral Ghoul settlement may have taken hold as they have in many high radiation areas such as these.

As he breached the crest of the hill he could already feel the all too familiar warm tingling spreading up his arms and lower abdomen that, signaled higher radiation levels. If The Ranger felt that warm tingle for too long then he knew it would change to being a dull throbbing that was his body cells dying off, accompanied by a piercing head ache that pounded against the inside of your skull feeling like it was splitting in two. If left even longer the radiation causes cellular degradation due to damage to DNA, various tissues would blister and break down as red blood cells burst and would be hacked up as a blood infused flem.

His helmet would regulate his Rad-X and Rad Away he knew. However it didn't stop apprehension gathering in his stomach, despite the fact that even now he could feel the tingling lessen slightly due to the Rad drugs.

Something that didn't help his apprehension though was the sight that awaited him as he crested the hill, he had been expecting Ghouls, Mutated animals and all matters of monstrosities that most people who hadn't seen what he had could imagine in their most sanguinolent nightmares. What he could not have predicted to see was...well...nothing.

The site was empty of Ghouls or anything else worthy of note that might cause him any trouble. There was a preternatural silence that had blanketed the area with not even the wind being picked up by his shrewd hearing, it only brushed against his fingertips in a spectral shiver.

The Ranger slowly advanced onto the rickety bridge that lead to the small corrugated iron shack at the rear of the crater that was the only building. From the corner of his eye he just barely caught sight of something at the bottom of the green, murky lake. What he saw was what looked like a decomposed arm and upon closer inspection he could make out other body parts lurking beneath the surface of the scum covered stagnant water, each one looked to belong to a ghoul.

"Odd". The Ranger muttered to himself, who would have been through here and killed the Ghouls? They weren't Ghouls that were easy to kill either; from their appearance they looked to be 'Reavers' and 'Glowing Ones' who were at a the stage of Ghoulification where they were notoriously tricky to kill. While it was something that was of little difficulty to The Ranger, there weren't many people who were like The Ranger. He supposed that it must have been a small band of them to have killed so many of the formidable Ghouls. However from the lack of noise in the area he drew that they had most likely moved on, his tensed muscles relaxed slightly but his hand still remained close to his Sequoia.

He approached the door of the small shack at the back of the crater that housed his dead drop. The non-feral ghoul who had decided to take up residence here; Dr Rotson, had decided to christen it Hells' motel in an effort to give it a sense of humor that always brought what was meant to be a smile to his face whenever The Ranger had said its' name.

When he arrived at the door he paused listening for any sounds from within...he heard nothing.

He pressed his back to the door, drew his Sequoia in his left hand, placed his right hand to the door and counted to 3.

1, 2, 3.

Once he reached 3 he kicked backwards into door with a loud bang, knocking it off its' aged, rusted hinges, clattering to the floor throwing a thick suspension of dust from the floor into the air. He span a he did so bringing the Sequoia to a steady level at chest height.

His helmet (having picked up the clouded atmosphere) activated his sonar, sending out continuous waves pinging back with the results showing up on his helmets heads up display leaving a red highlight around all objects in the room. Through the now settling cloud he could make out a slumped form propped up against the wall. Its' chest wasn't rising or falling. At the far end Dr Rotsons Handy Man was sprawled on the floor with its limbs scattered across the room having been brashly hacked off. By now the dust had settled and the sonar switched off only leaving a red ghost of an outline on The Rangers vision. He approached the slumped body on the wall and crouched to examine its' face, he took its' face by the chin and turned it sideways.

Upon closer inspection The Ranger could see it had been heavily mutilated even for that of a Ghoul, the nose had been hacked off by a jagged blade, it was hanging loosely by a sliver of ragged skin on top of craggy features with literal creases in his skin from being a Ghoul. The eyes had been gouged, the intestines ripped, arms pultrified and skull caved it. There was no doubt that it had been Rotson from his doctors uniform, The Ranger felt a twinge of sorrow over his now lost acquaintance and the brutal manner it which he had died, The Ranger closed his eyes in respect and vowed that if he met the people who did this they would pay (It wouldn't have been ghouls as their friendly to each other). His mood had turned to one of contrition and he felt no drive for an engagement, his arms had grown heavy and he felt a strong desire to turn and get out of there as soon as possible. Stiffly bringing himself back to standing he turned and climbed the stairs, despite not having heard any noise he still crept up the stairs keeping noise as muffled as possible. He came to the landing and glanced around the corner down the corridor to the rooms, seeing nothing he proceeded to the room which he had purchased from Dr Rotson what felt like a long time ago. The Ranger gently pushed the door open with one hand and followed it with his Sequoia, seeing the room to be empty he strode to the safe sitting in the corner of the room eager to get his hands on its' contents.

As he came up to the safe he saw numerous bobby pins littered around the floor having been snapped in half. It brought a devilish grin to his face as saw this, he had had the safe especially built with a fake front key lock to fool anyone who would try to break into it. He knelt in front of it and drew it up to his knees, ignoring the extreme weight of it while he turned it around to the back, he pressed his thumb into the lower right corner of the safe and dragged it downwards, bringing down a small panel that was almost invisible to the naked eye against the deep black of the safe. With the panel removed a small keypad was visible, he input his code 0451.

He heard the faint sound of spinning Gyros then the door to the safe popped open, he reached in and withdrew his weapon that he hadn't held in nearly two years.

The Weapon in Question was his Anti-material rifle, something that aside from the Sequoia was the staple weapon of The Desert Rangers and even though he could get along just fine with his Sequoia, he had been feeling almost naked without the familiar weight of it weighing on his back.

It had been split into 3 pieces to fit into the safe, the sleek mahogany stock, the shadowy Stygian colored barrel that had such a sheen that it looked as if moving pictures shifted along the length resulting in hours of entertainment, then the body ,which looked insignificant in comparison to the mesmerizing qualities of the rest of the gun, had an icy gelid feel to the touch which would only warm after having been repeatedly shot.

With his hands moving in fluid muscle memory he connected the pieces back together, screwing in the barrel, slotting in the scope and being careful to attach the stock without scraping the painstakingly well kept finish.

In his marveling of his weapon he had let his senses turn flat and had completely missed the Feral Ghoul Reaver that had remarkably silently maneuvered through the building, up the stairs and into the door frame.

The sight of such an unsuspecting target caused it to give itself away, letting a low uncontrollable grow quiver from its lips.

Instantly on guard The Ranger whirled around bringing up his new found rifle, aiming between the eyes and pulling the trigger in a heartbeat. However in his haste he hadn't loaded any bullets into the rifle and what he thought would be his last thoughts past through his head.

"Oh, fuck me"

Having seen the failure of The Rangers action the Ghouls heavily mutated muscles coiled and sprang in the space of a few milliseconds, moving at super human speed it lept through the air and would have brought its arm down into The Rangers head most likely knocking him out if not killing him. However from mere dum luck it speared it-self onto the barrel of the Rifle letting out a strangled cry as it did so. It slowly slid down the barrel, more and more life leaving its' features the closer that it got to the base of the barrel. By the time it came within distance of The Ranger all it could do was let out a feeble attempt at biting The Rangers face then slumping as the last of its' energy left its' body.

Having known how close he had probably just come to death caused The Ranger to let out a long held breath. He slumped to the ground, barrel and body lying across his lap as he sat in shock, he had gotten too used to His implant GRX working for him to the point where it had caused him to gain a weakness.

Looking down at the rifle that lay in his lap he recalled why he had left it in the deaddrop in the first place and how without weakness he had felt on that day.

This will be the penultimate chapter until the summer so lap it up, also the next one will be a c flashback chapter so remember to wet yourself in excitement. Also I am still proof reading this at 2:00 in the morning so please forgive any mistakes.


	6. Victor Presper

**June 22nd 2080 7:30**

The Ranger strolled through a corridor in The Ranger Veteran headquarters of Shady Sands. His shoudlers were back, arms swinging loosely at his side and his gait was taken in large strides, his boots clapping loudly against the polished floor. In his every movement there was an obvious zest for life showing the delight that he was currently feeling.

The reason that he was feeling such delight was due to the fact that he had just been given command for his first mission as a 1st Ranger. He would get to take every member of the 1st Rangers, 2 of The Veteran Rangers, 4 Rangers and 7 NCR Troopers, It was a huge contingent of Soldiers and was far beyind anything that he had been expecting, it had been a struggle not to jump the desk, grab Cheif Hanlon around the wasit and swing him around in a circle from sheer joy. Yet Etiquette and Hanlons dour and morose attitude had disuaded him from doing so. He could imagine the great displeasure that Hanlon had taken when he'd found out what he had had to tell The Ranger. That just made it all the sweeter. The nature of his command was to escort a V.I.P, the person that they would be escorting was someone given The Golden Branch by President KImball himself. The one and only Victor Presper. He was a pre-war scientist who had forseen the great war coming decades before it occured, in preparation he had cryogenically frozen himself and was meant to awaken in the year 2150. However a malfunction in the AI montoring his status had resulted in the year being set forward to the year 2500, if a lucky prospector hadn't stumbled across his Cryo chamber in the derelict ruins of his lab in Chicago then the likely hood was that he would still be there, languishing in the shadows of pre-war obscurity. A month after his thawing he was already comiting scientific feats that were impressive pre-war but miracles now, launching the NCRs understanding of science years into the future. Made ever more impressive by the fact that he must have been at least 100 years old (Not including the years that he had been frozen either). His age and frailty didn't deter him from his work though as he was often described as having been driven by nature to industry; he would rarely leave his assigned lab before the sun had set even for food or drink.

As he turned the corner to his personal quarters he layed his palm upon his door and waited, allowing himself a moment to wallow in the sweetness of his acomplishment. Letting out a self satisfied sigh, full of satisfaction.

He pressed his arm into the door proceeding into his room.

A brilliant flash of light stopped him in his tracks blinding him. A cry of "Congratualtions" went out from the room infront of him, hands grapsed his shoulders to steady him as he stumbled from the bright flash.

"Dam Ray, you turned the lights on too bright, nearly blinded the kid" he heard someone from the gathering in his room say.

He finally managed to blink his way back to visual clarity; looking somewhat like a stupid owl as he did so. With only small bright spots lingering in his field of view he fully took in the group of people that stood before him and the ways that they had defiled his room. They'd hung mutiple banners on his walls saying a multitude of things such as "Congratulations" "knock em dead" "Happy 18th birthday" (He was actually 36(It also wasn't his brithday)) and "You Jammy bastard".

He recognised all the faces of the people surrounding him each one wearing their black combat armour and trench coats. The 5 other members of the 1st Rangers all stood before him. Ray, Evangeline; a stunning woman with lips a stunning natural scarlet, hair the colour of spun gold and eyes that twinkled like diamonds, who as well as using her physical prowess to be a dangerous adversary also used her seductive nature that had lured countless people to their deaths . Frankie; a bit of a lone wolf from 1st recon had shunned her spotters in favor of solitude, naturally this was acompanied by a certain grim disposition. She possesed an unusually thin frame but above this unwieldy stature there was perched a head so masterful in its brow, so alert in its' steely gaze, so firm in its lips, and so subtle in its play of expression, that after the first glance one forgot the weedy body and remembered only the dominant mind that she possessed. Despite this she had earned the nick name pussycat due to her big cat like eyes. Tristan; was a man of pure muscle, his trench coat had been specially tailored to fit over his gross body, that was mishapen and lumpy beneath, he had been raised in a roaming bandit tribe that used drugs to accelerate muscle growth to the point where they were all malformed juggernauts such as Tristan, ironically Tristan was a man who had a harmless streak to him almost to a fault. He rarely spoke due to having a voice that would only have been befitting of a young boy much his junior from the drugs. The final member was Lucien Vex, possibly somewhat out of place with the other 1st Rangers was a man of small stature who had an ape like bone strucuture to his face and torso as he was often hunched with long arms that didn't fit his body, he was also renowned for his limited mental capacity. Yet his redeaming features were that he had some of the sharpest wit that The Ranger had even come across and was an excellent shot.

They all were leaning against various bits of furniture drinks in hand and smirks readily set upon their faces at his beffudlment from the bright lights.

"To the man of the hour" They said in unison, raising glasses filled with whiskey, pulling faces as they did so (All except for Frankie who like Ghost would at most give nothing more than the mere whisper of a smile).

Evangeline swaggered over to him in her own fashion placed a party hat on his head, planted a kiss on his cheek, placed a shot in one hand and a wrapped package in the other. "It's from all of us" She Whispered in his ear.

The Ranger downed the Whiskey bringing some stability back to his somewhat trembling hands. He cleared some space on his cluttered desk in the corner of his room where he placed his now empty glass and the unwrapped package. Evangeline following him over to the desk watching him as he unwrapped it, she knelt by the desk her head in her hands and an unbridled hunger in her eyes. (Her eyes always looked like that)

It was a stygian steel barrel for his Anti-Material Rifle.

Dumbfounded at the sheer beauty of the Rifle he did nothing for a few seconds but stood there with his mouth agape.

"Wow...Just...What did I do to deserve this? I mean I got my first command but..." He asked as he trailed off, voice turning soft as he gazed upon the new barrel. How had they afforded this? It looked to be bespoke; a one of a kind. Turning it in his hands he observed the patterning running along the barrel, as it caught the light the surface appeared fluid, never moving in the same pattern more than once.

Ray clapped him on the back and reprimanded him for not remmebering his year anniversary.

"One year ago today they fitted you with THIS" he gestured to The Rangers arm "death machine" Ray said grasping The Rangers hand, giving it a friendly squeeze as he did so, taking the challenge The Ranger squeezed back his mechanical (Human looking) arm giving him the pressure power and causing Rays arm to turn deep red. Despite having been vastly outmatched Ray didn't let it show, giving as good as he got despite the futility of his resilience.

"Okay ladies break it up" Called Frankie, who stepped in separating the two from each other. In reality on the few occasions she spoke a listener could hear she had a pleasent voice, not so rich as The Rangers or as warped as Tristans yet just in the middle which was perhaps much the sweeter.

As his fellow Rangers surrounded him he divulged the nature of his command and let them argue over who would be his second in command.

"Look if anyone should be second in command it should be me" explained Ray, his tone condescending "I've known him the longest, I'm more his friend than annnny of you, so...you know...step down guys"his hands gesturing to them in a 'bow down' action. As everyone started to advance towards Ray, getting ready to show him PHYSICALLY why he shouldn't be the second in command The Ranger beat them to it and caught Ray under his arm getting him in a headlock.

'You don't even know where we are going yet dum dum" said The Ranger, releasing him after a few seconds, not before a couple of nose pulls from Evangeline, resulting in Rays cheeks burning by the time The Ranger let him go. Realising that it was probably better to stay quite he became deeply fascinated in his shoe points and quietened down.

"So where are we going?" Said Vex who had remained silent so far. The Ranger grinned, he could always trust Vex to cut to the heart of what he wanted to know.

As he looked around at his fellow 1st Rangers they were all staring at him expectantly, like children ready to be told they'd be getting a sweet.

"We're going Baja"

Puzzlement came over a few of The Rangers faces and they exchanged some worried glances. Frankie raised her hand above her head as if she were a girl in school and said.

"But there is nothing in Baja"

"I know".

"Are you sure?"

"Positive"

"As in zip, zilch, zero. Devoid of all life for the last few decades"

"Hearing you loud and clear"

"Okay...so then why are we going?"

"I hoped you'd ask that"

A few seconds of silence past.

"Are you going to tell us?" Inquired Evangeline.

"Very possibly"

"Get on with it" whispered Tristan, when Tristan had to intervene it was time to get to it.

"We're escorting Victor Presper"

"The pre war science guy" said Ray his words revealing he didn't fully get just WHO Victor Presper was.

"A bit of an understatement but yeah, That's him"

"Why's he going to Baja"

The Ranger shrugged.

"You don't know?"

"No"

"You're such a moron"

"Don't be jealous of my genius"

The rest of the 1st Rangers looked at each other for a few seconds and all answered in unison.

"We aren't going"

Rolling his eyes The Ranger said he would go and ask and told them to wait in his room. Naturally they ignored him. Ray leading the way, kicked open his bedroom door to the corridor outside causing a loud bang as in clanged against the wall and resulting in it hanging off its' hinges, having splintered slightly at the corners.

When he noticed everyone wasn't following him he peaked his head back inside the door and asked.

"What"

"You broke my door" said The Ranger, his voice incredulous.

A look of dawning came over Rays' face and he said.

"Doors are for people with no imagination, may as well go out them in an interesting way". Seeing this as sufficient he turned not waiting for a reply, continuing in his march down the corridor.

"You have no idea how long it took to get him into your room without breaking anything" said Vex as he helped The Ranger fit the door back into place.

Shaking his head The Ranger followed his friend down the corridor, attempting to stop him taking a personal dislike to any other doors on the way down.

August 12th 2080 11:12

Two weeks had passed since his command of the escort of Victor Presper had began. They walked in a structured formation; two were in the truck assigned to them which carried Prespers' scientific equipment, two walked 100 metres to the north, two to the west, two to the east and two to the south. The remaining three walked ahead of the main group with two members of the 1st Rangers as forward scouts. The 1st Rangers operated on a different rota of course, four walked in a diamond formation surrounding Presper and then two were the forward scouts. Everyone changed their position each morning so they didn't become slack in their duties from boredom.

At the present time they were resting, having chanced upon the ruins of a pre war town The Ranger had the forward scouts searching the town for resources and potential threats as he planned on staying there for the night. The town was structured into two long halves on two separate tiers. The lower tier, where the Ranger and most of the rest of the party was situated, had the majority of the non ruined buildings and was where most of The Rangers and Troopers were searching. As for the higher tier there had been only one habitable building and The Ranger had decided that due to the funnelled shape of the town they wouldn't need the high ground for the tactical advantage. Even so he had sent Frankie and Ray to check it anyway.

Turning his thoughts away from the party he turned them towards Presper. Upon meeting Presper The Ranger had been feeling a strange novelty. Perhaps it was due to the legend that preceded the man or the fact that when he arrived to meet The Ranger for the first time, he showed up...and he knew everything. Every philosophical discovery The Ranger had chanced on, he knew it better. Every novel idea The Ranger had was a childish thought to him. When people said the smartest man alive they were being moderate. Despite the general contempt and distaste that Presper treated everyone with he represented the future of the human race, ironically though the past. Presper truly was the epitome of ancient and decrepid, possessing hair half way between the colour of ivory and newly spun cotton, skin that hund loosely off of his face the colour of old cooked chicken skin and eyes a milky colour, especially prominant in his left in which he was blind. He wore a charcoal grey suit with a white and blue plaid shirt, tucked just inside his colour he had a blue cravat which in the wasteland made him look completely surreal.

They were escorting him from Arroyo which he had been visiting to Baja; a peninsula split off from the mainland Mexico northwest and connected to the californian south west. His reasons for going there was that he had lots of his pre-war research there, what it was exacty no one new but President Kimball seemed extremely excited by the prospect of getting hold of it so it must have been something extraordinary.

The only feature that he possessed that made him seem remotely human was his fear of the wasteland. Every little thing made him jump and curse.

Due to being in charge The Ranger was the one who was assigned as Prespers personal body guard, perhaps being the most fortuitous situation as The Ranger was the only one to find the mans rambling interesting. (Even Frankie found the man distasteful and dull). However The Ranger could ignore it to hear the rumblings of a genius.

"So what happened during the Great War before the bombs were launched? Who was winning?" The Ranger enquired, pre war history was the on area of his knowledge that could be considered lacking. After thinking and chunnering to himself for a few seconds Presper gave a reply.

"There's no such thing as winning or losing. There is won and there is lost, there is victory and defeat. There are only absolutes. Everything in between is not worth fighting for, Th-" Presper was cut off mid sentence as a strangled cry came from one of the buildings in the higher tier. Both The Ranger and Presper snapped their heads in the direction of the shout. In a heartbeat The Ranger was on his feet and sprinting flat out towards the hill up to the hier tier and source of the cry, his heart was in his mouth from the sound of the cry, it had sounded like Ray. Many cracks resonated through the air, bullet shots, resulting in him increase his speed.

He was about 20 metres away from the top of the hill when he saw Frankie, she was crouched low behind a ruined piece of debris from one of the buildings. She was clutching her elbow where a bullet had shattered the bone . She was crouched very low to the ground and had heard The Ranger approaching, gesturing with her other hand she beckoned him over to her, replicating her low bodily position her scurried over to her when he heard.

"Hold it right there boyo". It came down from the roof of the building where Rays' cry had sounded. He came skidding to a halt sending dirt flying into the air as he did so. Upon inspection a harsh glare was coming from a scope atop the roof from a prone figure. Realising that he was in someones' sights The Ranger froze his limbs, leaving his arms sticking out awkwardly at his sides. Hearing the other Rangers charging up the hill behind him and he called out to them.

"Stay back" he waved his hand at them, signalling to stay where they were.

"Tha's a gud lad, now lets talk shall we." The snipers voice was obviously feminine, though it had a peculiar twang that he couldn't place. Due to the glare their facial features were obscured. However he could make out a dark green bowler hat sitting upon her head.

"S' now laddie, we 'ave a predicament d'nt we." Said the sniper, well, rather she slurred.

"Indeed it would seem" Said The Ranger, putting all charm behind his voice in an effort to coerce the sniper.

"We 'ave yur friend an' as l'ng as you d'n't come up 'ere again, 'e won' be 'urt." The Ranger went to take a step forward and before his foot left the ground, there was a loud 'crack' of a gunshot, throwing up red earth and dirt up his legs.

"Tha' wus a warning Ranger" she said, her tone deadly serious behind her seemingly ridiculous accent.

"I believe you" there was a pause for a couple of seconds and then The Ranger yelled "you alright Ray?"

After another few seconds came a response.

"Yeah...there are a couple of women with guns to my head, but in all honesty...It isn't the worst thing ever"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, three scantily clad women, all giving me their undivided attention... Meh, it's my usual Saturday night" at that there was the muffled sound of Ray getting hit across the face and his choked laughter.

"Yur friends gut quite tha' mooth an 'im, you an' yur lady friend thar just pitter off too ya truck down thar an' we won' 'ave 'ny problems".

"Or...you give us back our friend, we'll be on our way and you won't ever see us again. You have my word that we will leave right away" said The Ranger. He meant it too. He understood how intimidating a party such as theirs must have appeared.

"We can't release yur friend"

"And why's that"

"We need his blood"

"Now way" snarled Ray from inside the building.

"ee's a strong looking man, we need 'is genes"

After a pause Rays' voice came again " That one is a bit more vague" his voice now cautious.

"We wan' 'im to breed wit' us"

"Hey you know what, I reckon I'll be OK here on my own" his voice now thoroughly content.

"Why do you want to breed with him?" Said The Ranger.

"We 're a town o' women, men are weak. So we weeded thum out. However we still need thum occasionally, so we c'n continue". It was bizarre to The Ranger that she didn't even have a tone of humour in her voice as she said this.

"No really I'll be fine here" said Ray to The Ranger.

The Ranger ignored him. " And when you are done breeding with him? What then? Will you kill him?"

"We will never stop breeding with him"

"I'll hold them off" said Ray. "You save yourself"

"I'm not leaving you here Ray"

"Ah, go on, please!"

Turning his attention back to the sniper "Look, I'm just going to get my other friend and leave" he beckoned towards Frankie, who scurried towards him from her cover and straight into his arms giving him a very tight hug crying into his chest.

Slowly retreating with one arm around Frankie and the other near his gun he backed down the hill.

Once he reached the bottom he placed Frankie on a bench and looked her in the eyes.

"You okay pussycat" he said cupping her chin as he did so, his tone soft. She merely nodded. Obviously she was in shock, under usual circumstances she would have been okay but the wound to the arm had given her a fright.

He called over one of the troopers who was a medic to take care of Frankie. Evangeline rushed over as well, her face full of concern and worry.

The other members gathered around The Ranger. "What are we going to do" said Vex.

The Ranger had a cold look in his eyes.

"We butcher every one of the fuckers"


	7. The Dwellers from Vault 69

August 13th 2080 6:30

Fern O'Callahan squinted at the sun just rising over the hills on the horizon, causing her to swealter beneath her green bowler hat and squint her eyes. Raising her left hand to her brow revealed the scene that lay before her. In the lower tier of the town the NCR party had not yet moved on. However there had been much commotion between The Ranger who had talked to her the previous day and the troopers. It had climaxed a few hours earlier with the ones wearing Trench coats storming out of the camp they'd set up, disappearing out of sight behind a hill that the sun was now rising over. Moping the sweat from her forehead she pondered what had happened between them that had caused such a desertion of the group who had appeared to be the leaders and the ones who were grunts. She supposed it had been over their friend who they had captured. She sighed at the weakness of men; always thinking with their cocks and egos never able to make the rational choices which would have been to leave their friend behind. That was why they had weeded them out. Their group had originated from vault 69, of the thousand people who had entered their vault there had only been one man. She supposed the vault was meant to fail, yet it had prospered using cloning techniques and sedatives to keep that man alive the women had formed a utopian society. Her current group was of course just an off set of the original, they'd set out to see whether their group could be replicated on the surface world and so far it had worked. Stealing the occasional traveler here, raping and pillaging the occasional traveling party there had allowed their society to live outside the vault for a total three generations so far. Any male babies were cast out of course, left on a cliff top to be picked up by nightstalkers or to nosedive to their eventual death.

The few men that lived in their society lived as what they were. Vermin. Scum. The best that they could hope for was to live as servants shackled at all times, beaten at the slightest mistake. Thinking of the justice of it all brought a relishing smile to her face.

She turned her head at the sound of footsteps behind her. It was Juliet. Smiling as she topped the ladder Juliet moseyed over, her insatiable hips swaying as she did looking disgustingly sultry in her body movements.

"Heeeey you". Her tone warm and inviting.

She trailed a long finger over Ferns' shoulder as she came and stood next to her, resting her cheek on her shoulder drawing in a small audible breath through those cute pink little lips.

"Anyt'ing int'resting happened?" She asked, removing her head from Ferns' shoulder, drawing her repeater rifle from her back, resting it on the edge of the rooftop and looking down the scope at the group below. Fern also looked at the activity below, running her hands through Juliets' hair as she did so.

"Na, nu'in mooch, tha other group ain't come back yet".

Juliet moved her rifle slightly to look at the trail leading from the town to the wasteland and the surrounding hills. "Weird isn't it? I mean where'd the - Jeez that sun is bright -" she said as she had brought the scope over where the sun was cresting the hill.

After a moment of silence Fern said "Yu wus saying".

"Oh yah, sorry. Anyway, where'd they be goin withoot their truck? I mean they can't be from nearby".

Fern paused at that. It made sense, even with the truck they must have come from quite a way away. So why had some stayed where they were? and the others left without gathering most of their equipment. Interrupting her train of thought Juliet spoke.

"Hey, what's that?"

Puzzled Fern drew out her own rifle to have a look.

"Where?" She said unable to find the object of Juliets' confusion.

"There" Juliet said, tilting Ferns' rifle slightly in the right direction. "On the hill, look just ther-". Before she could finish there was a whirring sound and a mixture of a wet ripping sound and a crack. Juliet was blown back, screaming with her hands clutching her face with some red liquid squirting between her fingers. Fern rushed over trying desperately to pry her fingers from her face. Finally managing it she saw the gory mess that was Juliets' face.

Half of her face was gone, what was left of her right eye was a gooey pulp that was dribbling down the torn remnants of her cheek and into her mouth. Her mouth itself was no better off than the rest of her face, her lips torn and ragged had shreds of skin hanging at the edges. Her teeth were shattered, splinters had ledged themselves deep into her gums and tounge, the base of the teeth remained as sharp as the piles of splinters. She kept trying to close her mouth yet the pain of the teeth closing together caused her to keep jerking her mouth open like a gaping fish, a gurgled scream constantly emitting from her lips. The muscles that had been beneath her skin were clearly visible now, weeping blood into a pool around her face, soaking into her clothes and into her now empty eye socket.

Fern turned away and screamed as loud as she could for help. Although upon turning her head she could hear other sounds, of multiple cracks and wood splintering, of people screaming in pain, of war cries charging up the hill towards them, of glass shattering and men shouting.

She had Juliets' head in her hands, her life seeping out the right side of her face and eyes full of the desperate fear of someone who wanted the familiar face of their mother. People didn't die with bangs, they died with embarrassing, faeces sodden whimpers that few people ever heard.

With all this laid out before her, Fern realised, with a sinking sensation in her chest of the terrible mistake that they had made.

August 13th 2080 6:30 half a mile away atop the hill opposite the town

The Ranger cursed under his breath. He'd missed. He had meant to shoot the girl between the eyes, end her life quickly, but from half a mile away the slight breeze that had picked up after he pulled the trigger had moved the bullet slightly to the left. Hitting her in her cheek, tearing her face in half. He Grimaced, he didn't truly care about the suffering she would endure, yet he had missed. Something that could be counted on one hand in his life time. Bring his thoughts from his petty self vying in an imaginary competition he turned the barrel of his rifle to the other snipers that littered the rooftops of the higher tier. On each side of him the other 1st Rangers (excluding Ray and Frankie) and the two Veteran Rangers who had accompanied them lay on their bellies rifles out unloading their magazines into the buildings in the higher tier, if it hadn't been for their helmets they'd be deaf from the repeated boom of the high powered rifles. Each Rangers face was a cool mirror of calm showing no emotion or remorse. All except for Vexs' who had his anger displayed clearly on his face; it was screwed up in a splay of Ire and rage that was only increased with every shot that he took. On the buildings where Ray wasn't they rained all hell fire open them, using explosive and incendiary rounds to tear the buildings apart piece by piece, concrete and burning wood flying in all directions.

The troopers and other Rangers charged up the hill firing automatic rifles and throwing grenades. The plan they'd set up had worked like a charm, set up a false argument between the Veteran Rangers and Troopers, sneak away, wait just beneath the crest of the hill until sunrise, then climb to the zenith and upon the Troopers hearing shots come from the hilltop they'd storm the higher tier and rush the buildings.

A couple of fools tried to run out the front to meet the Troopers in open combat but either fell from sniper fire or the constant barrage from the Troopers. Women dropped like flies left, right and centre. Their cries lost instantly to the cries of others or the wind, for their dying screams to be carried out upon the wasteland forever.

It continued like that for an hour until the buildings themselves appeared to be weeping the red colours of those women. Their anguish and inevitable angst had come out in great sprays, covering the soldiers - who dispatched them with such efficacy that it was perturbing to witness - from heel to toe in fresh, runny blood. The only building left physically undisturbed was the one where Ray was being kept. It was stark grey against the vermillion of the other buildings. Being left mostly untouched most of the inhabitants had gotten through the last hour unscathed with only a few having fallen from the quick reactions of The Rangers on the ridge.

With all other of the women dead the Troopers had secured the buildings surrounding the centre one where Ray was. The Ranger left the rest of the 1st Rangers on the ridge and told them to cover him before proceeding down towards the town with the Veteran Rangers flanking him on each shoulder.

Upon reaching the town he met with the troopers captain.

"What is the situation". He asked, observing the buildings around his which seemed to almost be going under liquefaction under the running crimson.

"They've hold up in the first and lower floors of the building, sir. They've made a couple of verbal addresses but nothing further sir". Said the captain, standing to attention as he did so.

"Such as Captain?".

"Well sir...they were shouting obscenities that I'm not sure are appr-".

"That's quite alright Captain, I can imagine it was a colourful variety". Interrupted The Ranger, having grown quite irritated under the time that had taken so far.

He turned and addressed The Veteran Rangers who flanked him and told them to take up positions at vantage points on the buildings surrounding the central establishment. Brushing past the Captain he strode towards a derelict car opposite the building, hopped on the top, took his helmet from his brow and drew in a deep breath.

"Okay ladies, First one of you that comes out with my friends gets to keep their fingers" Once he said this he turned his head sideways expectantly as if to hear some instantaneous answer. He waited, in reality feeling quite ready to chop off every extremity that they had as it would bring him a great deal of pleasure.

After thirty seconds of waiting there was no sounds."Okay Captain please get ready to drop a mini nuke into the building." As he said this he stepped down from the roof of the car and gestured to the sides of each building as soldiers ran forward with Fat Mans balanced on their shoulders."Ray was a good friend and I'm sure he'll get me back in another life, so swings and roundabouts"

He held his hand above his shoulder, with it splayed flat. He slowly began to curl it, once it bunched into a fist they would fire and send his good friend into a fiery abyss.

Literally as his fist curled into an appropriate position for bleeding the weasel he finally heard a call of "hold it uh minute Ranger" and saw a crooked green bowler hat poke its way around the corner.

"Well, ahem, now that we have your attention we need to have a talk" he pointed towards the car bonnet as a place to sit and gestured to the troopers to take the fat men away.

The woman ducked back inside the doorway, hiding her face behind the wall.

" An' why wud I do tha' Ranger? So I can come oot thar and be killed by ur snipers before I even 'ave a chance ta shit me pants"

Chuckling to himself as he sat on the car he replied to the woman "What's your name, pretty lady?". He asked pressing friendliness into his voice to reduce her apprehension.

After a few seconds a nervous reply came from around the corner. "Fern...O'Callahan"

"Well Miss O'Callahan, you have a very simple choice; you can save your remaining people and never, ever see us again -which believe me won't be trail on my part to carry out-. Or you can not talk to me now and have this be the last sunrise that you will ever see".

The point of a pistol poked around the doorway and aimed straight between The Rangers eyes. At this he heard a shout of alarm from behind him and the sound of rifles being cocked. Before the situation could escalate he held his hand up at his shoulder in the flat gesture to signal them to hold fire, keeping eye contact with Fern the whole time, an easy smile on his face. Now that he could see her face properly he could see that see was a fairly plain woman. Even if there wasn't a smear of blood across her face and the startled fear in her eyes of a cornered animal that will do anything to survive. Beneath her green bowler hat she had very pale white skin (probably due to fear), mud brown eyes and greasy butterscotch coloured hair that was tied in a rough ponytail at the back.

She slowly walked towards him, one foot after the other with her eyes constantly darting from every infinite corner of her eyes. By the time she reached him her hands were shaking and cold sweat in little beads was obvious on her pale skin. When she came to a stop she had the shaking gun within inches of his palpebral fissure.

"Are you really going to shoot me Miss O'Callahan?" As he said this he fully pressed his eye onto the shaking barrel and held it there a grim smile played across his features. Her nervous expression changed to one of shock and for a few moments silence ensued. Dropping her eyes from his as she she did she brought her arm loosely to her side and dropped the gun. She was now thoroughly and truly defeated.

"Very good Miss O'Callahan, very good" he took her by the shoulders and sat her down on the car bonnet. Her head was downcast as she gazed at the floor unable to draw her eyes up. "Now Miss O'Callahan, how many of you fine gals are down there buggering my friend Ray into his dizziest, most sodom infested day dreams down there in that fetching home you have".

She mumbled something that came out slurred.

"What was that Miss O'Callahan, so speak up. I'm no longer eighteen you know".

"F...five, thar is five o' us". The words seemed such an effort to get out her lips. She seemed almost heartbroken at their vastly reduced number.

"Good, good. Now tell your friends to bring up my friends and I shall be gone before the sun has finished rising".

She appeared to be having some mental dilemma at those words and eventually the words he wanted to hear tumbled out of her mouth in an almighty sob. "Okay". Tears were pouring down her face and whimpering emitting from her trembling lips.

"Sarah, bring 'im up". At this there was the sound of a commotion coming from inside the building and of shuffling feet. With the anticipation building he waited to see what state his friend was in.

At him and the rest of the women turning the doorway it was obvious that he had been severely beaten with his right eye and lips swollen and a cut in his right eyebrow having leaked blood into his eye and brow and crusted over.

"Good, very good." He said in a soothing voice. Behind his back he raised his hand and bunched it into a fist. All holy hellfire was unleashed upon the women with them all dead within seconds except for Fern, who was screaming and pleading for it all to end. As she sat there crying, screaming and pleading he placed his Sequoia in her nostril and pulled the trigger blowing her nose messily off of her face.

This wouldn't be over slowly for her he had decided.


End file.
